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Human ID Chip Implant Prototype Unveiling
techfreak writes: "Applied Digital Solutions is set to unveil a working prototype of "Digital Angel", a dime-sized implantable 'microchip' which is powered by muscle movement, this October at an invitation-only event in New York City, two months ahead of the original plan. ADS Chairman Richard Sullivan said the development of the technology has progressed well ahead of schedule. It is said to be the first-ever operational combination of bio-sensor technology and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to global positioning satellite location-tracking systems. Concerns have been raised over personal privacy, but ADS claims that privacy concerns are misplaced, since the device can be turned off by the owner."
1. Social Security/Insurance numbers. I don't know about the US but in Canada when it was introduced it was stated that you would never have to give it to anyone except voluntarily. That included income tax and TD-1 (employment taxation form). Now it's mandatory on tax from and it is against the law to take a job and not give your SIN on your TD-1. Certainly it means you can't cheat on your taxes (I'm opposed to cheating on your taxes, btw) and that's good, but it does show that this idea was expanded to be more intrusive than originally devised.
2. Finger printing. I was finger printed as a child to "protect me from being abducted" (how that works I'm not sure, but that's the line they give...) 23 years later, I popped over to my friend's house with a 2 litre bottle of pop to watch movies. I left the empty bottle there. 2 days later he used the bottle to transport gasoline to a building which he burned to the ground. Smart guy he is, he wore gloves. Dumb ass he is, he left the cap there. Did he go to prison? Yes. Did I get arrested, lose my job and $4000 to lawyers first? Yes. Oh yes indeed.
The finger printing thing must work though. I never got abducted as a child....
2 1337 4 u!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but misuse in the land of the free (as long as they pay) and home of the brave IS an issue. Some lobbygroup will get this signed into law, make it mandatory to chip your kids when they go to kindergarten ('they might get kidnapped, so now we can track them'), you insurance will mandate that you get one ('so the emergency service will be able to find you'), etc. Of course, the insurance company (part of a big megacorp) now knows where you are, and when, and starts selling 'anonimized' profiles to marketing firms ('we are concerned with your privacy, if you do not want this then please fill out this 10-page form in Assirian glyphs'). Your kids will get used to the idea that they have this chip inside them, they might even get some small benefits from it ('people with ID-chip through the fast lane, those without show your passports please'), so they probably will think it 'natural' that they can be tracked everywhere.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, J.Edgar Hoover's great-grandson has risen to the top of the F.B.I, and takes up where his predecessor left off. When later questioned by the Senate, he states that 'it was imperative for national security that these people were tracked down'. Although there was no conclusive evidence that those people ever did something wrong, they were put away anyhow, since national security is a serious matter, especially when your own position is at stake.
But no, this will never happen in the US of A. Right?
--frank[at]unternet.org
Your not going to get my ID chip unless you cut it out of my cold dead hand!
Oh, I see you've got a knife and I can only guess why you brought along your brain trust.
Got any anaesthesia?
Wack!
[fade to black, then our hero wakes up]
Officer, someone mugged me and cut out my chip!
No officer I didn't steal that mp3-- someone is framing me -- please don't put me in jail.
I heard an insightful comment at Rootfest last June. We were talking about biometric authentication methods. One of the attendees mentioned that it would be very very nasty if someone could steal the authentication token your biometric data generated. Unlike passwords, you cannot change your fingerprint every 3 months. I'd hate to see someone with a scanner steal your implant's code and then use it to authenticate him/herself.
-B
why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries?
GPS handheld units are cell phone size because most people like to have a screen of certain size to look at. GPS-on-a-chip systems are commercially available now and somebody (Casio?) already sells a consumer GPS watch. Power requirements -- I don't know. If you take away all the extras and leave just the basics -- signal receiving circuitry and minimal calculating capabilities -- the drain might be very small.
Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale?
"Simple" and "implantable" is a contradiction in terms. Implanting stuff is complicated, expensive and scary. Often not necessary, as well.
Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking?
It is already being done on a wide scale for animal and property tracking. Not implant, though, because it's much simpler and cheaper to put a collar onto an animal than to perform a surgical procedure.
Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?
This IS human testing 8-)
In any case, given that it's very easy to block the GPS signal (e.g. go inside a building or under heavy tree cover), I doubt that this technology is useful for arbitraty tracking of people. I think that what they have in mind is more like tracking people inside highly classified buldings.
Although the day a government will insist on implanting a chip in me as a precondition for a job will be the day I move on to friendlier shores...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I've never understood why these types of devices need to be surgically implanted. Can't they simply be worn in some inobtrusive place like around your ankle?
Anything that CAN be turned off CAN also be set so the "switch" is disabled. First prisoners, then parolees, then sex offenders, then members of militias, then dissidents, then anyone and everyone else.
Go NOW and rent the old James Coburn movie: The President's Analyst. Then get scared.
/(o\ I'm not a medievalist - I just play one on weekends!
I really am shocked at the tremendously poor quality of posts on this thread. It's clear that very few people actually read the information on the site or even tried to think logically about any of this.
1. This will eventually be mandatory and The Man will track us wherever we go!
This seems to be the chief conspiracy theory. Let's think about this for a moment. What percentage of the voting public would desire or permit the government to mandate implanted tracking devices? If somehow the evil government broke away from the people and started trying to force this upon its people, how many would take up arms against it? I WOULD. I may be trying to speak in defense of this project here (only because there's an overwhelmingly uninformed body against it at the moment), but I would certainly fight any attempt at mandating tracking devices in our bodies. This is just stupid to even consider.
2. The devices can communicate with satellites and track us all with GPS!
Another poster mentioned this, but he was quickly rebuffed by another uninformed poster, but do you really think we have the technology to shrink down a fully functional GPS receiver into a device the size of a grain of rice? The smallest GPS receiver I've ever seen was built into a wristwatch, and it was the bulkiest watch I've ever seen in my life. The best we can do is something the size of about 3 AA batteries, and you've still gotta have a good antenna and a clear view of the sky for it to work. What they're saying by linking the devices up to GPS technology is the same sort of "GPS tracking" they're planning on building into your phones: conventional base-station triangulation linked against known GPS information.
3. All of the RF radiation from these things will kill us, like our cell phones are!
Do you really think a rice-sized device is going to put out as much RF energy as your cell phone? This thing is powered off of what little energy it can get from muscle movement. Have you also noticed how HOT your cell phone gets pumping out all that energy? Putting out 750mw of power from a grain of rice will cook your flesh quite effectively. I'll talk more about this topic below.
4. Why do these tracking devices need to be implanted, anyway?
READ THE PAGE! The primary use for these things is for BIOMETRIC SENSING. Location is simply a side-effect and a nifty other purpose. They specifically say on their site that the biometric sensing devices are meant to be implanted or bonded close to the body SO THAT IT CAN COLLECT BIOMETRIC DATA. These things aren't about tracking the human population, they're about things that are legitimately useful. Do you really think a company is going to be very successful marketing an implanted people tracking device?
I seriously doubt there is going to be a significant "global network" capable of receiving transmissions from these devices such as what you're seeing with cell phones. The devices are small and extremely low-power, so they can't transmit far, and they were built for biometrics sensing. I don't have any more information from you, but calling on my meager yet sufficient store of COMMON SENSE, I can figure out that they are planning on using these things inside buildings, hospitals perhaps, or when out of doors, "base stations" would be located on mobile vehicles, which would drive around, listening for signals it's looking for and collecting the data/location.
This makes these devices quite useful for things like hospital patient monitoring, lost children, pets and endangered animals, since the base station is either positioned near the devices, or can be relocated in small area to search.
This does not make these devices useful for these stupid human implant tracking device conspiracy theories.
Can we please use a little more common sense and think through some of this stuff before we go frothing at the mouth about all of the phantom evils this new technology spawns?
You're definition of average bloke is presumably bound by the country that you live in. And I'd guess you're from the US or UK (or another Western country).
Try being yourself same average bloke in, for instance, an oppressive state like Burma, and see how much the government enjoy knowing what the "average bloke" is doing, and how much they relish the chance to know exacly what average things you're getting up to - so they can then make you their idea of average.
I say Burma but it could be any number of countries with oppresive regimes.
You're comments are dangerously naive.
Dude, what kind of crack are you smoking? Cheap crack, I'll wager. You need to earn some money so you know what it looks like. Same goes for the US Mint if those numbers came off their web page. A Susan B Anthony coin might be about 2 mm thick, a quarter is about 1.3 mm. I can't think of anything 1.2 inches across.
I don't have a ruler, but here are some measurements comparing to a pin header I have on my desk. Accuracy +/- 5%
Quarter, $0.25, 0.95 inches, 24 mm
Dime, $0.10, 0.70 inches, 18mm
Nickel, $0.05, 0.85 inches, 22mm
Penny, %0.01, 0.75 inches, 19 mm
CDROM hole, 0.60 inches, 15 mm
Ryan
Yes indeed, but I fear that's only the tip of the iceberg. We should question new technology, first and foremost. Not accept it blindly, look at what the automobile running fossil fuels has done to our environment, now we are so dependent on it that change is hard to come by.
Just wait till the day you have an implant that tracks your location, monitors your health, keeps your medical, dental, financial and criminal records right on that chip! Pet animals like dogs already get ID implants in them in the area that I live in. Can anyone see it's apparent benefits? You go to a new doctor he scans your medical records right in from the implant or whatever.. He doesn't have to call anybody up and get a faxed copy of it. Or what about financial? Do away with cash and just have a balance on your implant. You walk up to the cash register and bingo you paid for your dinner. Oh and lets not forget you can't lose any money now, can't get robbed and the government doesn't have to worry about counterfeit. But that is scary part, because you and your past will go with you everywhere. Have some bad credit 20 years in the past, should be gone right? Nope it's still sitting on the little implant. But I think it will be so appealing to most people at first they will accept it without question, maybe even embrace it. Big brother will be watching.
I'm not afraid of technology, it has helped humans tremendously but this is one technology I'd rather pass on.
C'mon... I thought information wanted to be free. One's heartbeat and GPS loc is simply information. Does this mantra have exceptions?
--
The Government...
Now, if you can just turn the bloody thing off, what is the point of it as a tracking and identification device? I mean sure, they designed a switch in it to be able to turn it off, but in practice, will that switch be available? If the government decides to start using these for any purpose, you can expect that it will be implanted in criminals.
WOuldn't it be wonderful if every person who ever broke a law had an implant like this. I mean background checks would be simple, just wave a little wand in front of somebody and if it beeps you don't hire them because they are an ex-con. And of course you make it a heinous crime to remove the implant. Who can argue this logic, I mean criminals are bad and evil, right? And as we all know, all criminals are habitual offenders for life. No matter how much time they serve, are they really ever to be trusted again? Of course not!
*SIGH*
Why don't they just change the name from "Digital Angle" to "The Mark of the Beat" and be honest with us?
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Imagine this scenario: I'm off for a weekend's rock climbing, loaded up with just the essentials, ie. as close to nothing as possible.
Carrying the kitchen sink while inching up a cliff face not only slows you down, it reduces your life expectancy. So, I don't want to lug around a cellphone, GPS, PDA, cash, credit cards, organ donor card, maps, compass, pen, torch, radio, or altimeter (:-).
Instead, I slap a couple of DataPatches on my arms and one on my forehead; they look kinda like bandaids. The one on my forehead provides most of the clever stuff: not only a useful amount of computing power, but also micropower transmissions to the dumb receptors I've had implanted in my retinal and ear nerve stems. Triggered by blink codes, I get all the info I need superimposed on my regular vision. I suppose this is a descendent of those crappy old head-up displays.
The DataPatches on my arms do the brute force work, as there's a large amount of excess energy on the surface of muscles that's easy to tap. Body data is gathered both locally and from the forehead patch transmissions, and external data is gathered from GPS and terrestrial radio transponders. This is all available to me on my A/V channels, but in addition, the arm patches store up power for occasional long-distance data bursts with the help of additional power-pump amplifiers in the heels of my shoes. As a result, I'm not only safer by being better informed, I'm also safer because my progress monitor a thousand miles away at home is keeping tabs on how I'm doing. And should something unfortunate happen, well, it knows what to do.
Now then, where is the "not good" in that scenario? There is none, because I'm in control of the technology, not somebody else. It's working for me, extending my control over the environment, helping me to survive and to have fun.
The problem isn't technology, but the people that might use it to gain power over you. That has always been the case and I guess it'll always be so, but that's not a reason for labelling technology as "bad". In that direction lies Luddism. Take it further and it's the end of Man's progress towards the stars.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
So, the consumer can turn OFF the privacy-invading auto-identifying feature, can they? Hmmm...I seem to recall Intel claiming something similar about their ID numbers on the PIII. And then somebody wrote a cute little program that turned it back on again. This is truly frightening....
Actually, the main point is whether people will actually consent to having it implanted. This is the kind of stuff that spawns mass hysteria, but in reality no company in the US can force employees to do it. There are also protective measures like lawsuits which can bankrupt companies that abuse technology or cause negligent harm (eg, GM had to pay millions for faulty tanks).
The main worry is not misuse in the US, since there is enormous media/public scrutiny. Technology like this in the hands of China/Burma/N.Korea or any of America's puppet dictatorships is the dream-come-true of totalitarian regimes, who can do whatever they want. Today, dictators are having a difficult time controlling people yearning for greater freedom and able to evade their rulers. It will be more difficult to avoid being tracked if you are a human cursor wandering around a screen on a govt. computer.
Not sure what kind of business plan this company has. Will American companies - wary of lawsuits - really implant thousands of their employees with a chip? Who will buy this thing?
OTOH, think of how much trouble China or Saudi Arabia is having tracking dissidents or people released from prison. Pop one in, and you can say 'Come to pappa' anytime you like.
w/m
an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and
e-commerce security
Remember the Intel PIII ID number? Same thing, just now it identifies the person, not the computer. If they can identify both the orderer and his location via his implant, then they can't get many fake orders, can they?
Something like this might fly in Europe but not in the U.S. One of our deep seated myths(as has been posted many times in this discussion) is the 666/number of the beast myth. People have been saying for years how the antichrist will take over the government and force everyone to be branded with a number(barcode) - if you refuse the mark you will not be able to buy or sell anything and therefore will perish.
Regardless of any advantages a digital implant might bring, this prevalent myth will destroy its chances in the U.S. It will be interesting to see if it takes off in Europe while the U.S. denies this technology because of its superstition.
Personally, I side with the fundamentalists and zealots on this issue. A digital tracking device is just too much of an invasion of privacy and is subject to too much abuse to make it worthwhile.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Not true. Not true at all.
First off, I've read a couple of your other posts, and I do have to indicate that as far as Christians go, I have to commend you for being relatively unobjectionable.
Since you appear to be one of the few people I have ever encountered who identifies both as a Christian, and then actually appears to "live and let live", you are a special individual.
I must assure you, though, having a Baptist family living next door and a Catholic church across the street, Christianity is a family of religions that seems to promote even less tolerance and freedom of opinion than even Islam.
Well you know, back in the Roman Empire, we were rounded up and fed to lions. (Hey if everyone else is so focused on long past persecutions I'll join them)Don't even go there. More wars, violent deaths, and tortures have occurred on the basis of Christianity than all the other religions of the world have caused.
While a few thousand people were turned to Colisseum Cat Chow for the entertainment of the Romans, things did change shortly after that.
The fall of the Roman Empire gave rise to one even more dangerous and more powerful: The Roman Catholic Empire.
Throughout the middle ages, Jews, Wiccans and people of other religious denominations that have predated Christianity by millenia were persecuted, forced to convert, and if they didn't, were killed off by the thousands.
It continued for a long time after that: Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch Trials? Hell, at Salem, you didn't even have to be a Wiccan to be burned as a witch.
And then, Christian vs. Christian bloodshed runs rampant in the world today. My own family is from Northern Ireland, and when I was a child, my own grandfather used to tell me stories about how he used to shoot Catholics for fun. How different are Catholics and Protestants? How different can they be? Don't they share the same god?
To this day, Christians are the most intolerant people in the world. Middle of the road average-Joe Christians are programmed by the church to think homosexuals are going to hell. There's enough evidence now that Helen Keller could see that gay people are a normal part of the population. And yet Christianity drives thousands of gay teenagers to kill themselves every year, because of their "abnormal lifestyle". I think every red-blooded man can agree that there is no lifestyle more abnormal than celibacy, and yet the Catholic Church demands that of their priests. Little hypocrisy, anyone?
Even more hypocrisy: Doesn't the bible tell us that God doesn't like it when we worship other deities? Isn't Christianity, which is basically the worship of a dead carpenter named Jesus Christ, completely ignoring that? Or, because it's His Son, does that make it okay? Add to that the Catholic affinity for the Virgin (ie. didn't get caught in the bushes with Joseph's brother) Mary and all the Saints just add to the mess? And when people bow to the Pope, aren't they worshipping him? Christianity seems to be, in reality, about as polythiestic as the Pagan religion of the Vikings, or as those of the ancient Greco-Roman peoples.
So, forgive me for calling you on your little blurb about how many Christians died during the Roman Empire. Perhaps if we finally threw off the shackles of organized religion and tried just being nice to each other, humanity could enjoy a far greater standard of living.
Come the afterlife, if there is one, I'm sure that I'll be okay. If God is rejecting people from Heaven because they're Jewish instead of Baptist or Hindu because instead of Catholic, the crapshoot is so great that you'd never know what religion to believe in order to be allowed in. In other words, ask to be buried in Bermuda shorts. Or, better still, get cremated to help acclimatize yourself. But, if there is a God, I have faith that He would be more concerned about what kind of life you led, not who/how you worshipped.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Well, that's one more pacemaker for the rest of us.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
but in reality no company in the US can force employees to do it.
1) Similarly, no company can force employees to take a drug test. It's purely optional, but if you won't follow this simple request, you're obviously a troublemaker and (insert multimegacorp's name here) would just as soon not have you around
2) No website can force you to accept cookies, but if you turn cookies off, you lock yourself out of a good number of websites.
3) No check-cashing storefront, health club, or other membership-based enterprise can force you to surrender your state or federal government-issued identification, but is fully authorized to decline your business if you refuse to comply.
Yes, is very important to worry about impants being used to track people, but if you start to thing about it their are thousands of medical uses things that can be done with implant technology. Here are a few in roughly the order of technological difficultly. Blood Sugar checks for diabetics. Energemency dailing for an ambliance in case of an heart attack. Checking Hormone levels for early worning of deseases. Checking blood for antibodies or DNA sequences of bacteria and viruses for early worning of deseases. Replacement nerves, after spine damage. Replacement senses, after damage. Hormone release and T-box gene activation to induce regeneration of lost limbs/organs. Culture style neural lace, for VR and augmented reality (AR). SoulKeeper (impanted computer, continuosly copies brain state and neuron configuration to a backup copy of the persons mind.
That's really the main serious use
for these devices.
...can be turned off by the owner.
By simply ceasing all electrical activity in the muscles, no doubt. No problem!
The idea of it drawing it's power from it's host is probably the most interesting part of the article, but I think there would be a lot more beneficial uses for it (medical analysis for example) than creating a worldwide human tracking system.
--
That's, like, the understatement of the century? Christ, this sounds like something out of 1984! This is the kind of news I would expect to read in the Onion!
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
from the google cache of the site:
"an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and e-commerce security"
what the FUCK does that mean? any way i interpret that, it sounds pretty freakin scary. are they talking about tagging employees or customers?
- isaac =)
I don't want to nuke myself!
Disclaimer: I know that there aren't any proofen side effects of cell phone radiation (exept the minimal temperature increase of 0.1 deg C) - but, hey, there's also no proof that it is harmless!
Maori
Although the implementation may be more advanced (site says they want to use GPS), but this has already been done before, at the University of Reading, England.
See the ZDNet article here or Slashdot article here or the original academic text
here.
These first uses were to do with intelligent buildings though, for just positional and indentification info, rather than any form of biological monitoring.
They should beta test this kind of stuff on politicians. Maybe they'll make this sort of thing illegal once enough of them are tracked and caught sleeping around, accepting bribes, selling political influence to foriegn nations, etc...
_______
2B1ASK1
If these chips are embedded, would it be fair to say that they are ARM chips?
Will people that work out a lot have Strong ARM chips?
Imagine if Microsoft wrote the firmware for these things?
"Hey man it's cool, I run windows! Oh crap, the left side of my body has just gone numb..."
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
If the body-powered generator thing really worked, it would be immediately useful for the pacemaker industry. But they don't mention that application.
Scenario one:
You post a piece of code on a crypto-enthusiast site. 30 minutes later your implant is turned on (remember the on you got for being busted for pot being in the car) and 30 minutes after that the happy little NSA black van picks you up.
Scenario two:
You're walking downtown, scratching the still stinging itch from your implant. You didn't want it, but it was required before would hire you. After all you are on the helpdesk staff, and you have to be reachable at all times. Yes, you have a pager, and a satellite phone, but this is just the next logical progression. Besides it's for your safety... at least that's what the company literature said...
Scenario Three:
You move into this lovely little gated community, it's like a little slice of heaven. You meet all the neighbors, and ask they how they be soon unconcerned about their children and they breezily reply that they're all 'chipped'. Traceable, watched and safe. You fret a little bit and finally decide to do it, after the HeavenGate (tm) community you live in is offering to help offset the cost, and nothing is more important then little Jimmy's safety. Then one day it happens, Jimmy doesn't come home. Frantic, you call the Gate Police, and they tell you not to worry, he's probably somewhere playing. They'll activate his chip and bring him home. Hours pass. There is a knock at the door. It's the gated police. But no Jimmy. Just a ziplock bag with the chip, and a ransom note. After all what good does the chip do the kidnapper after he's used it to locate your children?
*A)bort, R)etry, I)nfluence with large hammer.*
You're assuming a) that any given receiver (including a GPS receiver) uses the same intermediate frequencies to generate the one you're attempting to receive; and b) that the signal generated by such a receiver is sufficiently powerful to affect the reception on other frequencies (even harmonics).
The "harmonics" you're describing are less than a 10th of the wavelength of the GPS frequency you're naming, and the fact that they're only a few MHz apart tells me that they are not any appreciable fraction of the main frequency (+/- the intermediate(s)). Harmonics typically sit at nice friendly fractions of intermediate frequencies +/- the primary frequency. Things like 1/2, 1/4, 5/8, not 6/101.
The power output is another thing. I have never seen a receiver that was capable of broadcasting intermediate frequencies more than a few feet. To encompass a city block, you'd need to be transmitting with a walkie-talkie amount of power -on frequency-. If you're thinking harmonics and intermediate frequencies here, the power output has to go up exponentially. I can't imagine any receiver transmitting that kind of RF energy and passing FCC inspection.
Slightly larger than the chunk of plastic missing out of the center of a cd/dvd disc (I'm to lazy to go find a ruller at 4 am:)
Mycroft
Hence, the criminal disappears.
Now as for other applications, like tracking livestock, lost pets, missing children, medical monitoring, yes, these have some potential societal benefits.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I wrote an aticle on that found here http://www.thelantern.com/archives/gendisp.asp?id= 927117612076"?
What's interesting about your situation is, you have proof that the fingerprints were actually collected and held by security forces. Hmm....
This guy I know, went to Vegas, and met this really hot babe. He takes her back to his room, thinking he's going to get lucky, but she slips a drug in his drink. The next morning he wakes up in a bathrub filled with ice. He feels like shit and his neck hurts. Then he notices a sign on his chest that says, "Don't call 911. You're fine." He doesn't, and just goes home. He didn't know it, but his wife had paid someone to implant a chip in his neck, and now she tracks his every move.
In other words; measuring parameters which tend to change from time to time. Where is the security? I mean; I guess it could tranfer those parameters as well as the position of the owner but I don't think it will be using any encryption or something. So basicly I'd call it a nice tracking device but thats about it. IMHO its 'improving' "e business secutiry" simply because e-business is in the picture.
As for GPS, the antennas themselves are fairly substantial. Even the GPS watch is a pretty big device. It can do 600 readings (10h at 1 reading per minute) with a CR2 lithium battery. And how well that thing works compared to a "real" GPS receiver remains to be seen.
Making a dime-size device capable of bidirectional communications even just with a cell site, incorporating GPS, performing body function monitoring, and in addition being powered by muscular energy still looks to me like it belongs in the realm of science fiction. The fact that the individual bits and pieces seem plausible ("I have heard..." and "people are doing something like that for...") is just the mark of a good tall story.
You are confusing ID chips with what "Digital Angel" claims to have developed. ID chips (I have tried them) have a range of a few feet, are powered by RF energy from the read-out wand, and can do virtually nothing other than transmit a number back to you. ADSX claims that they have something that can receive GPS, communicate bidirectionally with distant stations, is powered by muscle, and is the size of a dime. That's a completely different thing.
This is not a revolution, it's just an evolution of currently available technology.
If a government wants to track criminals, dissidents, journalists or whatever, the technology to do this has been developed a long time ago. You just need a bracelet with a radio transmitter, secured around the persons wrist or ankle. Hell, I bet half the bears here in Norway has got one of those...
The real obstacles to abusing this kind of technology are not the technological challenges in itself, but the social and political ramifications. We don't see personal radio beacons, even in the most oppressive states on earth. Why would it suddenly become more widespread, because it's implanted?
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
The first time I heard about a similar project, this was about an alternative to jail for non-dangerous convicts.
Do these guys consider that the mankind is a set of non-dangerous convicts ?
Last week we talked about Napster and about the coders' responsabilities in case their tools would be used for malicious purposes.
This week, we just (subliminally) suggest that according to the chaos theory (a butterfly wing's beat in Australia could cause a tornado in Arkansas three months later) we will just be trackable enough to get sentenced for such abuses (even if this is not obvious, this is gonna happen because these devices will show they full potential only when used alongside a lawyer).
When will the first humans pioneer another world?
I give you my part of this one.
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
The PTA and the School Board has agreed to enact a new policy based on a promising new technology called 'Digital Angel Mark V'. This technology promises to enhance school saftey and the health of your child tremendously. All children will receive this added benefit at no extra cost to you -- it is being funded by President Bush's "Take Our Schools Back from the Bad Guys" program. The devices will be installed with all children on Tuesday, with absentees to be made up the following week.
Note: Cases of excessive absenteeism will be reported to the FBI.
From now on, you will never have to worry if your child falls ill while in class because physical abnormalities will be immediately detected and treated! Never will you have to worry about your child instigating fights or misbehaving, because Digital Angel Mk 5 detects biochemical and/or hormal changes as well! The school infirmiry will insure that all children are monitored closely and that proper psychiatric medication is applied to ensure a relaxing, pleasant, and disciplined learning environment.
Thank you for your continued support of the PTA and remember to invest in $schoolname stock options!
Sincerely,
Principal $principlename
P.S. Don't forget the upcoming Mind@Ease Mental Health Drug Expo in late September!
[pink beam of light]
Anyone remember that spoof site someone set up a while back saying they would pay volunteers some money if they would take an implant like this? They had a page buried in there somewhere with some jokes about the whole thing. Then someone claimed it was a psychology experiment. I wish I could remember that URL!
Anyway, maybe this is all hogwash to grab capital from people who listen to too much heavy metal music or are control freaks. Or maybe it is disinformation to desensitize us.
Seastead this.
They will stay totally voluntary. You won't have to get one, and if you do, you won't have to share your tracking number with anyone outside the issuing agency. Just like social security numbers. :-/
How long before these become mandatory? They'll start implanting them at birth.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If all that is possible, why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries? Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale? Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking? Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?
Take a look at the stock chart on Yahoo! and check out the associated news and insider stock activity, salaries of the CEO, etc. The whole thing seems pretty iffy to me.
And now, our valiant servicemembers (like myself), after the wonders of the forced injection of the Anthrax vaccine, we have the DIGITAL ANGEL. Marvel as your vital signs are transmitted during the battle field along with your location so commanders will know when and where you die! Watch in glee as they collect vital information about the latest drug that they've decided to test on you! And even better, look what happens in garrison! Are you out of your designated liberty boundries? We'll know now. Are you in an off-limits establishment? We'll know now. What time are you going to sleep tonight? We'll know now. And of course, for the military, there's the new REVILLE function. At 0530 sharp, a revitalizing jolt of energy will come coursing through your veins to make sure that you're up and awake, because God knows that we can't trust you a damn bit. --- I'm getting out of the Corps for sure now. No question.
That has got to be the best beowulf cluster joke I've heard in a long time... honestly.
Personally, I'm gonna overclock mine... rig up a peletier cooler that can be worn under a suit jacket and I'm all set.
2 1337 4 u!